


if it hurts, we're doing it to ourselves

by QuietLittleVoices



Series: The Other Side [9]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Hospitalization, M/M, bad stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 10:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15861741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/QuietLittleVoices
Summary: It didn’t matter why Jack never told Sammy about King Falls coming onto his radar as a real project. The outcome would always be the same.[Or: the fic about Jack's obsession with King Falls and the days leading up to his disappearance].





	if it hurts, we're doing it to ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> Me at 10 AM on a Saturday: angst time!
> 
> fr I've been working on a different fic and then I couldn't puzzle it out so I wrote this which is just purely angst driven. I'm still working on the Ben Fics as I've mentioned so hopefully I can get those out soon-ish but school is about to start back up so who knows... the next fic I'm gonna work on is 100% fluff though it isn't in this series so keep an eye out for that!

Jack wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell Sammy about King Falls when he got interested in it. Maybe it was because it was in Colorado - a short drive from Denver the worst city on Earth in Jack’s entirely subjective opinion, and he chose cases to avoid the entire state when he could. Maybe it was because it wasn’t a  _ new _ case, exactly - Jack had been hearing stories here and there about King Falls since the beginning of his career, and he was sure that he’d mentioned a few to Sammy over the years. None had ever needed following up on, because largely the community of King Falls dealt with their supernatural phenomena internally and left very little for the FBI to take interest in. There were always more immediate and urgent situations for Jack to look into. He wasn’t even sure what had changed to make King Falls something that he was specifically interested in, rather than objectively. 

Maybe he didn’t tell Sammy because of how he’d acted with his last project. He knew that he’d gone too far, knew that Sammy had been worried about him and still was. Jack noticed how Sammy had been acting when he got a bit too enthusiastic about a project over the last few months. They were engaged now, they were committing to a future - Jack had ordered a crib online out of pure anticipation of a far off goal - and Jack tried not to worry that Sammy was rethinking it. Logically, he knew that Sammy  _ wasn’t _ , but he couldn’t help but wonder when Sammy gave him a sideways look, or he realized that he was neglecting himself and had been holed away for a few hours in his office.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter why Jack never told Sammy about King Falls coming onto his radar as a real project. The outcome would always be the same.

 

“I can’t keep doing this to you,” Lily said when Jack got into her car.

“ _ To _ me?” Jack echoed. “What exactly are you doing  _ to _ me?”

Lily sighed but didn’t say anything right away, and Jack let her have her moment despite the rising irritation. “You’ve always had your projects, but Sammy told me about last time. You need to take a break, re-evaluate.”

“It was just… a hard month,” Jack replied lamely. “It’s fine now, I won’t let it happen again.”

She looked at him skeptically. “He told me you ignored him. He told that to  _ me _ , which means it’s pretty bad.”

Jack bit his lip. “Yeah, I know. But - I won’t do it again.”

Lily turned so she was facing him as well as she could in the parked car. “Here’s what it looks like to me,” she started. “You ignored him and treated him poorly for several days, and then afterwards you had a ‘grand romantic gesture’. That’s an abusive behaviour, Jack, and I’m not convinced you won’t do the same thing again. I won’t be party to you doing that to yourself.”

Jack opened his mouth to speak and then snapped it shut. “It’s not… I’m not…,” he trailed off, looking past Lily’s shoulder and out the car window. “I was planning to propose anyway,” he said finally. “It wasn’t orchestrated.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Intentions don’t always matter.”

Lily was watching Jack like he was a bug under a microscope and he couldn’t help but look away. Looking into her eyes was too much. “I’m not going to do that again,” he repeated emphatically. “Sammy and I are going to start a family, and I want to be better for that. I’m gonna work hard to be good enough for it.”

Jack studied the air vent in silence, feeling Lily’s eyes still on him. Neither of them said anything for a long while, and Lily broke the silence “Jack…” she said disappointedly, “I love you, but I don’t believe you right now.” She reached into the back seat of the car and pulled a bag forward into her lap. “I found this,” she said, pulling a folder out and handing it to him. “It’s a series of unsolved disappearances in King Falls. I thought you might want to look into it.”

Jack took the folder and put it into his laptop case. “Thank you,” he said quietly, turning to get out of the car but Lily stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“I’m not doing this anymore,” she said. “You can find another informant, but I recommend you don’t.”

Jack took his arm out from her grip and set his jaw. “Thanks for the input.” He left the car and didn’t look back.

 

Jack texted Sammy from the apartment complex’s parking lot, and Sammy came down to meet him. Jack leaned over to give Sammy a quick kiss in greeting, something they wouldn’t have done so publicly even a year earlier, before popping the trunk so they can bring the groceries up together. They put them away in companionable silence, brushing up against each other in their small kitchen. Before Sammy saw it, Jack grabbed something from one of the bags and slides it into his laptop case. It was bulky, but he knew Sammy wouldn’t notice quickly enough. Jack startled slightly when he felt Sammy’s arms go around his waist and Sammy press himself up against Jack’s back, pretending that he needed to reach over Jack’s shoulder in the cabinet.

“What’s up?” Sammy asked quietly, speaking into the back of Jack’s neck.

Jack put one of his hands over Sammy’s. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

Jack didn’t have to see Sammy’s face to know that Sammy didn’t believe him - the energy radiated off of him. “Thinking about what?” 

“We should get a bigger kitchen,” Jack replied, and Sammy hummed in agreement.

They stood like that quietly and Jack leaned back slightly into Sammy’s chest, letting Sammy take a bit of his weight. 

 

It didn’t start immediately or all at once. They took another case and Jack set down the folder. The disappearances that Lily had thought were interesting were few and far between - there were a few clustered together in the seventies, and then none until 1987, and then an average of one every three years or so. It wasn’t consistently, which just made it seem more unconnected.

A few days after Christmas, Jack found something interesting. 

 

Sammy tried not to be irritated when he woke up and it was clear that Jack hadn’t come back to bed. He’d brought food into Jack’s office the night before, and Jack had smiled at him, but hadn’t even looked at the plate and Sammy wouldn’t be surprised to find the food in the kitchen garbage.

He knocked on the door to Jack’s office and didn’t get a reply. “Did you want to go skating today?” he asked through the door.

Jack didn’t answer and Sammy went to make breakfast for both of them. He brought a cup of coffee and a piece of toast with peanut butter into Jack’s office. “Thanks,” Jack muttered, taking the coffee and downing half of it in one sip. He didn’t even look at the toast.

Sammy pressed his lips together and noticed the plate from last night, long gone cold. So, Jack hadn’t even bothered to leave the office so far as getting to the kitchen. He took the place and set down the new one, going to scrape it off into the garbage and thoroughly soaking it.

He tried to get Jack to come back to bed that night and Jack barely even reacted to his presence. He brought Jack food at regular intervals the next day, but always ended up throwing it out. On the third day, Sammy went into the office to try and find what Jack was obsessed with, because Jack wasn’t saying.

Sammy ran into Reagan in the mostly-empty lobby.

“What are you doing in?” she asked. “You don’t have to be back until January.”

Sammy shrugged. “I have to pick something up. Jack’s been…” he sighed and went to sit in one of the plush chairs that lined the entry, and she came to sit next to him. “He hasn’t been doing well, and he hasn’t been listening to me. It’s like I’m not even  _ there _ .”

Reagan reached over and patted his arm awkwardly. “There, there,” she said robotically, and Sammy would have laughed if he didn’t feel so overwhelmed. “He’s been like this before. He’ll be fine. Just get what you need and go home. You two can take extra time off, if that’s what you need.”

Sammy smiled at her weakly. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Anytime.” She stood up and smoothed out her jacket. “I have actual work to do. Don’t take too long, okay?”

Sammy nodded. “I’ll be in and out.”

 

Everything was getting very dark very quickly, but Jack didn’t notice. The noon light streaming in from the window was obscured like someone had put the drape down, but Jack was alone in the apartment.

Jack didn’t notice until the shadows started to crawl up the legs of his chair and desk, creeping onto the table in front of him. And then it was too late.

 

Sammy didn’t bother announcing his presence when he got into the apartment. He hadn’t found anything of interest in the office, not that he’d expected to. Jack kept the office in a state of organized chaos, as he called it. There was a system all his own that even after a decade of working together Sammy had yet to completely understand.

He went straight to the bedroom to take his suit off and was stopped when he realized that the door to Jack’s office was standing open. He walked towards it cautiously, and then couldn’t stop himself from rushing in when he saw Jack slumped over, head on the desk.

Sammy called Jack’s name and got no reply. His hands were shaking as he struggled to look for a pulse, not wanting to face up to the reality of what he was doing, but then he noticed Jack’s chest rising and falling. Without thinking, Sammy managed to get Jack upright and down to the car. Later, he wouldn’t be able to recall the long walk down the hallway to the elevator, the seemingly endless minute going down, and the drive to the hospital. He wouldn’t be sure how, some instinct taking over completely, but he got them to the emergency room and they were admitted instantly because of Jack’s visibly unstable condition.

They put Jack in a bed that was separated from the rest of the room by only a curtain and tried to make Sammy leave, but Sammy asserted his position as Jack’s fiancé to be allowed in the uncomfortable chair that was pulled up next to the bed. A nurse hooked Jack up to IV fluid but then it took over an hour for a doctor to come by and actually asses Jack’s condition, over an hour of Sammy gripping Jack’s hand tightly in his own and trying not to notice how clammy it was.

“It looks like a combination of dehydration, malnutrition, and exhaustion,” the doctor explained. “He should wake up in a few hours and you can go home.”

Before leaving, the doctor took a quick medical history from Sammy, and Sammy let himself feel reassured that he knew everything. He knew everything easily, quickly, because he knew everything about Jack. Even if things were starting to get unusual, he knew everything.

“Does he have a history of eating disorders?” the doctor asked finally.

Sammy shook his head and then stopped “Sort of,” he admitted. “I guess, yes.” It was easier than explaining  _ sometimes he forgets he has a body that needs taking care of _ , because until recently it had been years since Jack had forgone food for a project. But he’d done it, and Sammy knew that he’d been doing it recently.

The doctor made a note and nodded before leaving their little enclosure.

Sammy pulled his chair as close as he could get it, holding Jack’s hand in both of his. He couldn’t help but realize that everyone in the ER now knew that they were engaged, that they had a  _ relationship _ , and even though this was something they were working towards - being open with everyone, including strangers - it was a weird feeling to have all these people know before their coworkers. Granted, these people didn’t realize that it was new information or a revelation. It was still an odd situation that Sammy had found himself in. 

Two hours later, a nurse came in to make sure that Jack was still stable. She informed Sammy that everything was going according to expectation and Sammy tried to feel reassured.

Five hours after Sammy had found him, four since they’d arrived at the hospital, Jack woke up all at once. 

 

Jack knew instantly that he wasn’t in his office anymore and he started to panic. He opened his eyes and looked around frantically before realizing he was in a hospital. Jack saw something in his arm and went to grab it, dislodging the monitor on his finger, but someone put their hand over the needle. 

“Hey,” Sammy said softly, but Jack couldn’t see him. Not really - he knew Sammy was there, right in front of him, but it was like he was in another room, or the person in front of him wasn’t really  _ his _ Sammy but a copy.

“Get me out of here,” Jack said, voice hoarse and angry.

“No,” Sammy answered simply. “You’re sick, Jack. You need to stay here for a little while.”

Jack let out a heavy, laboured breath. It was like something was sitting on his chest, and he felt his ribs rattle with it. He heard an angry noise coming from inside himself, but couldn’t connect it to his own voice. “You don’t  _ understand _ ,” he protested, voice rising anxiously. The panic at being so pinned down, strapped in and connected, was starting to sink into his stomach and crawl up him. “Why would you do this -”

Just as his voice was starting to rise, he tried to pitch himself out of the bed, away from Sammy, but Sammy grabbed him as a doctor and nurse came in. Jack pulled himself out of Sammy’s grasp and managed to grab hold of the nurse’s arm, trying to pull himself up and towards her, out of bed. She squeaked and the doctor reacted quickly, injecting something into the IV tube that worked quickly and Jack felt his grip slacken against his will.

And then everything went dark again.

 

“Does he have a history of violent outbursts or psychosis?” the doctor asked.

Sammy starred across the room at Jack. They’d moved away to talk but Sammy couldn’t stop staring at him, how he no longer looked calm in sleep. There was a tightness, an energy to Jack’s limbs even under sedation.

“Mr. Stevens?”

Sammy shook his head and refocused his attention on the doctor. “No, he, uh - no. He doesn’t. Not that I know of, not in the last thirteen years.”

“Is there anything that you can think of that might have caused this? Did he take anything?”

“No,” Sammy said again. “No, he - I would know.”

The doctor made a note. “Is there anyone else we can ask?”

“His sister, but they’re fighting and she’s… I think she’s out of the country. I don’t know. I don’t know when she’ll be back,” Sammy answered. “I tried to call her but it went straight to voicemail so I think she’s off the grid. That’s not - she has to, for work, sometimes,” Sammy added when the doctor looked at him questioningly. He wasn’t sure why he was defending Lily - she’d been gone for weeks, hadn’t tried to contact either of them, not that she could have known that this would happen. “She wouldn’t know, anyway.”

The doctor nodded and made more notes. “We’re going to keep him asleep until he’s fully rehydrated and physically doing well. Then, we’ll start to slowly bring him out of sedation and see where we can go from there.”

Sammy agreed, and again he was left alone with Jack. He felt his body crumple into the chair, his shoulders slumping, his head tilting forwards. He couldn’t hold the tension in his body, even though he wanted to, and his breath started catching in his chest. 

They started to bring Jack out of sedation an hour later, and Jack didn’t say anything, didn’t move, barely indicated that he was even aware for another half hour when they gave him more of something meant to wake him up, Sammy wasn’t sure what. Even then, Jack just opened his eyes. They were still wild, and the tension hadn’t gone away, but Jack didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t look at Sammy.

An hour later, the doctor decided that, officially, Jack’s outburst was due to confusion and won’t be repeated and they fully bring him out of sedation. Jack barely moved as they remove the IV and tell Sammy that he could take Jack home. Sammy worried that he was going to have to carry Jack again, but Jack swung his legs out of bed and got up. 

Jack’s face was blank, not like he was hiding something but like it was empty. His eyes were vacant as he followed Sammy to the desk and Sammy couldn’t look back, could only focus on Jack’s presence behind him and pretend that everything was okay.

They didn’t speak as they get back in the car and Sammy could barely hazard a look sideways. As soon as they got into the apartment, Jack went straight to the office and shuts the door. Sammy flinched at the noise of it and lets himself fall onto the couch. Without thinking, he called Reagan.

“Hello?”

Sammy closes his eyes. “It’s so bad,” he told her. “I just got back from the hospital with Jack.  _ God _ , it’s so bad this time, I don’t know what to do.”

“He’s going to be okay,” Reagan said automatically, but it was clear that she wasn’t sure, either. “Make sure he gets some rest, but - just wait it out. Do whatever you normally do.”

“I’ve been  _ trying _ ,” he answered, and the stress of the last day washed over him and he felt himself start to cry. “I don’t know what’s wrong this time.”

“I don’t know how to help you with this, Sammy,” Reagan said evenly, graciously ignoring his obvious distress. “But you can take off as much time as you need, for you to both be healthy.”

Sammy thanked her and hung up. When he went to check the door to Jack’s office to bring him food, the door was locked. It had never been locked the entire time they’d lived there, and Sammy had to resist pounding on it or picking the lock or breaking it down. He left he plate in the fridge and went to bed.

He woke up and it was a new year and he didn’t see Jack. He felt tired and helpless, down to his bones. He kept trying to knock on Jack’s door and never got an answer, and he hoped and prayed that Jack was still  _ awake _ in there. It was the not knowing that got to him. 

Two days later, Sammy woke up and found Jack’s office door open, and Jack was nowhere to be found. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comment if you liked this or it made you Feel Things !


End file.
